The following is an in-depth story analysis. If you haven't seen the movie, you might want to before reading this review
Well, it was inevitable. I have to review Kick-Ass now on Fanboy Flicks, on my family friendly website with no vulgar language. I wouldn't usually say the a-word, but I can't help it in this case. It's the name of the movie. It's a good thing it wasn't called Super F***ers or The Bulls*** Avengers.
This will be a tough review, and I hope some of this makes some kind of sense, because I don't know how to fully articulate my relationship with said movie. I don't want to call it a guilty pleasure, because that term is used for movies that aren't very good, but that one can't help but eat up with a spoon; but there's so much right with said movie that that's unfair. There's a lot of sophisticated storytelling in Matthew Vaughn's directing; the acting is first class; the same care went into this that went into X-Men: First Class despite how strikingly dissimilar those movies are. For such a strange beast with a really difficult balance to strike between comedy and drama, Vaughn intelligently starts slow, beginning in a totally quirky, teen comedy place, and then ramps up with absurd violence in the comic book satire, until it reaches such a high octane level in the final moments, we're ready to see Kick-Ass shoot a bunch of mob thugs with a Gatling gun, sitting on top a jet pack. I was so satisfied in the theater by that reveal. The thing Big Daddy paid three hundred thousand dollars for was a jet pack?
There's a fantastic sense of continuity in the movie; so many small setups and then payoffs to reward the audience for noticing, like the teddy bear in the warehouse which turns out to be a surveillance camera. For a movie that seems fixated on pushing the vulgarity and the brutality to the farthest reaches of sustainability and yet still be knee-slappingly entertaining, and often laugh-out-loud hysterical all at the same time, it's nothing short of remarkable how much real heart and depth there is to these characters. Big Daddy, without a doubt, is a sociopath. What he's done to his daughter is, as what Marcus calls it, absolutely brainwashing. I should find this man fully condemned upon, and I should have pity to what he's turned Hit-Girl into, and I certainly shouldn't be smiling or applauding or laughing when she massacres entire rooms full of people; but I must admit that, at times, I did the exact opposite. I also must admit that once Mindy and Dave return to Big Daddy's headquarters, after the mob boss, Frank, had just had Big Daddy set on fire and burned alive on streaming video, and Mindy picks up the two hot chocolates they were just about to enjoy before Red Mist set a trap for them, I absolutely had tears welling up in my eyes.
I don't appreciate violence for the sake of violence, and I don't find stabbing, beheading, shooting and torture, fun things to watch all by themselves. To each his own, and all that, but quite frankly, I question people who go to movies because they want to see those things. There is a time and a place for all things in a story; bad, unwholesome, tragic, disgusting, reprehensible; evil acts happen to people. We can't say anything about human behavior if we ignore human cruelty. Very often, those things create the very thing that is in the heart of every story: conflict. Yet, sometimes movies are more about the spectacles than they are about the narrative, and like a lot of video games, the narrative can be a loose framework to make the spectacle happen. Even in musicals with great stories, some people are only there for the music. I've never watched the Fast and Furious films, but for people I know who like those have never once told me anything a character does in those movies; they go to see cars drive fast. So, as someone who loves movies as a storytelling medium, I would call things like that, guilty pleasures. It might not be, narratively, a good film, but it might be a good ride. I can see why a person would go to a theater to see people dance, or play basketball, but I, personally, have derived no pleasure out of seeing extreme violence. Except, this movie made it fun. Between my caring about the people I was following, the exciting camerawork and choreography, and choice of score(especially the punk version of the banana split song when Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl meet for the first time), I did.
The real drama of the film did carry me through the movie. There is absolutely a good story here, and that elevates it above superhero parody; but I have to say, I also genuinely enjoyed some of the rough and arguably unnecessary violence, especially when it was Hit-Girl doling out the punishment. I don't like that I like that, personally because I'm not sure what it says about me, but also because the fun in the violence is at odds of the main idea of the movie, which is that being a superhero, if someone tried to do it in the real world without powers, wouldn't be fun. You'd likely wouldn't survive your first time out. The movie really drives the point home the first time Kick-Ass confronts a couple car thieves, and he gets knifed and hit by a car, that a regular person wearing a suit and fighting crime is impractical, dangerous, and all around a bad idea. In this commentary during that scene, Matthew Vaughn feels the need to stress that he wanted to do the opposite of romanticizing costumed vigilantes by giving Dave and the audience a real dose of reality. He even stresses, kids, do not go out and try this. But then, in a movie all about how fragile human bodies are in comparison to how they're often depicted in comics; that you and I couldn't take as many punches as Batman does in any given evening, and be able to talk to anyone the next day, much less, go back out and do it all over again the next night; why are so many of the fights and shootouts so much freaking fun?! I'm not saying it makes me want to go out and be a superhero; it actually succeeds in making it seem like a really stupid thing to do; but the movie is sending mixed signals, at least to me, because I feel like it's a warning on how rough the criminal underbelly of a big U.S city really can be, and yet, a celebration of violence, all at the same time.
That contradiction is inherent in the material. The movie has a solid, consistent tone, and outside the action scenes, it's never jarring or inappropriate when the movie transitions from over the top hilarity to genuine, gut wrenching pathos. I laugh with, and cry with both Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl, and even with Red Mist, who ultimately goes down the villain's path, but he's a fully sympathetic antagonist. The raunchiness, with its constant F bombs, and masturbation humor, and the hardcore brutality is what the movie was most sold on, but I felt that the story was so much better than that, and didn't need so much raunchiness. So, even though that raunchy stuff doesn't do anything for me and I feel like ultimately the movie could've lived without it, I could look passed it because I appreciate the characters and I was involved with what was going on. I don't think I would've liked the movie nearly as much if it was fully faithful to its source material, because the characters in the comic book are not as likable or relatable as they are here. Matthew Vaughn says in his commentary that he finds Mark Miller's characters horrible people. It's like it has to be vulgar and raunchy because the book was known for it, but it wouldn't be accessible to a wider audience if we didn't, you know, give a crap about anyone we were watching. Big Daddy might be a sociopath here, but I like him, and weirdly have a certain amount of respect for him because of the relationship he has with his daughter. In the comics, he pretends that the mob killed his wife so he has an excuse to raise his kid to go beat up bad guys. Hit-Girl might still be worth watching in that version; after all, it's not her fault her dad was certifiable, but imagine to have to watch that dynamic for two hours versus what we had here; a relationship that, as messed up as it is, is sickly charming and sweet that it has me care about Big Daddy, even if I don't like and condone his actions.
The major success of this film is that it greatly improves on its source material. I'd argue that even it's too faithful to the spirit of the original. I think the comics could've done with the heart this movie has, though, it could be argued that the comics are straight up satire, whereas there's a grounded, human story at the core of the film version. It's one of those rare instances where being accessible actually works in favor of the story. It homages, pokes fun at, and challenges superhero tropes and archetypes, but in a wonderfully character driven way.
Kick-Ass, in its foundation, is yet another what if superheros existed in the real world story, but like Watchmen, it's a more grittier world than silver aged comics, and people aren't generally as noble or optimistic as they are in those books, but it's still a heightened reality. Dave even sort of has a superpower. His screwed up nerve endings make it more believable that he can survive more than a day on the job. It's more about the commentary about how the unrealism in superhero stories than an attempt in putting superheroes in the real world, and like all good superhero stories, it's about how heroes inspire people. This time, it's done the way it is in our reality. If people really did put on costumes and fight crime, they'd be inspired by fictional superheros because we don't have any real ones to speak of, and so it's a story about average people trying to live up to their perfect ideals, and that's what I really latched on to. Dave is a good Everyman because there's nothing inherently special about him, and he's quite relatable. Because a lot of teenagers have no sense of direction or self identity, he wants to be something extraordinary, but when he looks at extraordinary people, he sees some profound turning point in their lives that motivate them to develop their talents. I worry that if nothing horrible ever happens to me at high school, I might grow up really boring and insignificant. I suppose a lifetime of looking up characters like Batman will do that to you. If you don't have a concrete, emotional connection to a cause, how could you devote your life to it?
Big Daddy is the dark Avenger; the Punisher to Kick-Ass' Spider-Man. I was surprised that originally, the cast was conceived without Kick-Ass. Originally, the comics were just going to be Big Daddy and Hit-Girl. I can't even imagine this story without that sense of optimism.
Big Daddy is a lot more interested in revenge than he is in justice, and he's raising his daughter that way. They have a specific mission as supposed to Kick-Ass' broad goal in helping whoever is getting screwed over by someone else. They want to take down Frank's drug operation and get even for Big Daddy's imprisonment, and the indirect death of his wife, who couldn't cope with the situation and overdosed on pills. For Big Daddy, it's not about wish fulfillment. The superhero persona gives him a convenient way to hide his secret identity, and to help create an environment to include his eleven year old girl. He really does have something closer to the tragic backstory, and the film implies that, in a way, in a world closer to ours, a person so obsessed over the death of a loved one, and took the law into their own hands, would be more likely to develop a dangerous, deranged psychosis, and seek out vengeance, rather than become a public servant. The argument, or perhaps it's the joke, seems to be that it would take someone with nothing better to do, rather than someone with a chip on his shoulder to do what Kick-Ass does. I also liked that he had five years of prison and humiliation to develop his warped psychology, and that makes more sense than the instant transformation, so many fictional vigilantes have.
Nicolas Cage is brilliant in this role. I love the Adam West voice he uses, and he demonstrates sincere affection for Mindy. While his choice to raise her this way is demented, it's hard to hate him as a father. He teaches his daughter self respect, discipline; a lot of really useful practical life skills; but more than that, we see example after example of his love, admiration, and pride for his daughter, and the bizarre contrast between the almost wholesome way they treat each other, and the activities they do together. It's hard not to find it really funny. This movie is brilliant at making me laugh at things, and then hate myself for it. I laughed at a father shooting his daughter at pointblank range. Sure, she was wearing a bulletproof vest, but you gotta hand it to Matthew Vaughn, I was charmed by a man shooting his eleven year old daughter in the chest.
But when the comedy gets away from me is in Kick-Ass' attitude toward Hit-Girl and Big Daddy. They're mass murderers and he knows it, but he calls them the real deal. We have one moment of real uncertainty, when the stark truth comes rushing down on Dave in his room, right after the scene when Hit-Girl butchers a pack of thugs in a room, to save him. At first, I think, what tortures him, is that all those people died because of him. Kick-Ass never resorts to violence right away; every time he tries to stop a crime, he gives the bad guys a chance to stop what they're doing before he starts wailing on them with his sticks. He can't be comfortable with Hit-Girl's methods, yet he never confronts her or Big Daddy about them. As the film progresses, he doesn't really seem put off by it at all, so I'm forced to assume that when he broke down in his room, it was because he realized how unprepared he is for crime fighting, and not because of all the guys who got killed. I don't think its because he's involved himself with a sociopath and he knows it, but he's just too afraid to say anything.
He admires Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, and berates himself for not being as careful and sharp as they are. I think the profound difference in moralities between these characters should've been more in the forefront. Shouldn't Big Daddy and Hit-Girl serve as a shattered disillusionment when he realizes that, not only is he not the first one to try it, which bothers him, of course, because being the first is what he though made him special; but the only way to successfully operate and stay alive seems to be to kill everything that moves. That's not what he signed up for. After all, it is Kick-Ass, and not Hit-Girl and Big Daddy, who inspired all the other superheroes, and so the film seems to say that he really is the first superhero; that what he's doing is heroic, as opposed to vigilante justice. Other characters, namely Marcus, call Big Daddy what he is: a sociopath; a mass murderer; but there's another layer to this story that's ever explored and awkwardly ignored, with Kick-Ass going along with all that violence, and not really being a part of the worst of the worst of it, until the very end.
He admires Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, and berates himself for not being as careful and sharp as they are. I think the profound difference in moralities between these characters should've been more in the forefront. Shouldn't Big Daddy and Hit-Girl serve as a shattered disillusionment when he realizes that, not only is he not the first one to try it, which bothers him, of course, because being the first is what he though made him special; but the only way to successfully operate and stay alive seems to be to kill everything that moves. That's not what he signed up for. After all, it is Kick-Ass, and not Hit-Girl and Big Daddy, who inspired all the other superheroes, and so the film seems to say that he really is the first superhero; that what he's doing is heroic, as opposed to vigilante justice. Other characters, namely Marcus, call Big Daddy what he is: a sociopath; a mass murderer; but there's another layer to this story that's ever explored and awkwardly ignored, with Kick-Ass going along with all that violence, and not really being a part of the worst of the worst of it, until the very end.
And so, I'm conflicted about Dave's use of guns at the end. On the one hand, he's saving Hit-Girl, and the men he kills are all armed and dangerous, so it's necessary. Then again, I question his agreeing to go there, in the first place. Why doesn't he make more of a distinction between saving people and getting retribution? He understands Hit-Girl's desire to see Frank pay for the death of her father, and he feels responsible because he led Big Daddy into an ambush, but I feel like this kid would be more hesitant to go shoot up a house full of guys in the name of revenge, or at the very least, he'd be traumatized by it after it happens. It seems cynical that the way Dave moves passed his naive sensibilities about the simplicity of helping people, is that he learns from a deranged ex-cop and his brainwashed, superficial daughter, how to become comfortable with guns and killing people.
The problem is the movie tries to have its cake and eat it, too. It's impossible to separate the serious from the ridiculous. So, I'm made to care about Dave, but at the same time, because there's this absurd component to the movie, I'm also not supposed to take it too seriously, or read into its larger implications. In a movie where it earns it's darkness where I can accept a grown man beating the pulp out of an eleven year old girl because of the larger story context, and what that scene means to those characters, I have a hard time accepting that some of the violence is treated as set dressing and that Dave isn't as repelled by it as I would be.
I realize one of the superhero motifs the film dabbles into is whether the hero causes more problems than he solves; if his very presence inspires as much destruction as it does good. But I question how responsible Dave really is for Big Daddy's death. Dave gives him the secret signal that he wants to meet, posting on his website that he's on vacation, so without finding out what it's about, or anything, Big Daddy sends Kick-Ass the address to his secret headquarters and invites him over. When they first meet, Big Daddy says, we like you but we don't trust you, and for good reason. He's entirely careless and untrained, and anyone could find him with all the evidence he leaves behind if they just looked hard enough. So, what's changed at this point of the movie? Kick-Ass brings Red Mist to Big Daddy's headquarters, then they get ambushed. That strikes, to me, as flimsy plotting, to get characters from point A to point B, and it undermines Big Daddy's credibility. It's hard to believe he's stayed hidden this long, if he's capable of those sorts of mistakes. On a side note, Matthew Vaughn says in his commentary that this was really made like an independent film, though I doubt a lot of people look at it that way, or know how small the film's budget was. He says, as many good filmmakers experience making minimalistic movies, that not having much money is better because it forces you to be more creative, and great ideas can come out of that.
One of those, was the way Big Daddy's origin played in the narrative. Vaughn didn't have the money to film the whole backstory montage, so he had John Romita Jr. draw it in panels, and they turned it into a sort of, motion comic. What was done for practical reasons turned into a great storytelling choice. It's always better if you can get this kind of information in a natural way, inside the progressing story, rather than interrupting the narrative with flashbacks. Sometimes flashbacks are the only way to do it, but this works really well because we aren't suddenly thrown back in time, having to mentally hold our place while we go experience a mini story to inform our otherwise linear narrative. It's also a really clever way to acknowledge the story's comic book roots, and this really is a comic book world designed to provide a commentary and parody of other comic book worlds. It's nice to see some John Romita art in the film, especially since the comic and the film were developed together. Unlike most movies based on comics, this one didn't sit on the shelf for a long time until someone decided to make a movie. The movie rights were sold before the first issue came out, so Mark Miller and John Romita Jr. really knew what they were doing was being adapted, and surely, that'd influence the creative process.
Besides it being a story about wish fulfillment and teenage identity crisis, this is also a story about family, and living up to parents' expectations. Hit-Girl and Red Mist have dual character arcs, and how big each character perceives their relationship with their respective fathers, shapes the people they ultimately become. Even though he's turning his daughter into a homicidal vigilante, Mindy has so much respect and reverence for her father, not just because of the training he gives her, but because he believes in her and constantly shows her he's proud of her; he's both a terrible father and a fantastic father. Conversely, Frank has no faith in his son, and their relationship is entirely superficial. It's a little better than Norman and Harry Osborn's, in that, at least Frank gives his kid more the time of day, but he won't teach him anything about his business, not so much because he thinks a seventeen year old kid should be involved, but because he doesn't like the man his kid seems to be turning into. He's too nerdy and socially awkward. Mob bosses don't read comic books. How could he ever be confident and intimidating enough to run the family business?
Surprisingly, Frank is not an entirely wooden villain; we can see a lot of great details about him, and he spends actual time with his kid, taking him to the movie theater and such. He's eccentric; spends his money on modern art, like those enormous, Andy Warhol paintings of guns that should seem ridiculous, but somehow. fit the decor, and he cares about his family and what his kid thinks of him, even if he doesn't like what his kid is turning into, illustrated by the scene where Frank is so distressed about his men getting killed, seemingly by Kick-Ass, that he starts snorting cocaine, which he apparently gave up at some point, and puts it away in a frenzy when Chris walks in. Frank does finally give Chris a chance to get involved when his comic book knowledge comes in handy, dealing with Kick-Ass, and he comes to his dad with a well-thought-out plan on trapping Kick-Ass. Chris isn't inspired by his dad as much as he is inspired by superheroes, and his admiration for Kick-Ass gets in the way with the new relationship he's building with his father. Chris, like Harry Osborn, is conflicted. He sees two clear paths set out before him, and he's forced to choose one. He didn't count on liking, or looking up to Kick-Ass, but he really admires what Kick-Ass is doing. Despite that, he feels an obligation to his father, and reluctantly chooses the darker path, only fully owning it at the very end, when Kick-Ass kills his dad, and he is able to reinvent himself as a super villain, which is clearly what he had in mind when he quotes Jack Nicholson from Batman, wait'll they get a load of me. What a cool ending. His arc is essentially the same as Harry Osborn's with the added twist of his pretending to befriend the superhero and inadvertently, actually caring about the superhero, which makes me appreciate him more, and makes his turn to the dark side, while hilarious, a little sad.
It's interesting that with the classic father-son and father-daughter motifs, our main protagonist doesn't really have that mentor figure he's trying to live up to, even though his dad is still alive, yet Kick-Ass still represents another side to this idea. He's the kid who didn't have a real life role model, so he'd buried himself in a fantasy, and found inspiration there, like so many kids do. If he had any pride in his father, he might have some other goal to strife for, and he wouldn't see himself as such a loser. We don't see very much of Dave's father here, and we have only the broad sense that his dad has been sad and pathetic ever since his wife died, indicated subtly by a scene where they sit together in silence at the breakfast table, which is framed the same way, and has Dave and his father sitting in the same places as they were in the brief flashback of his mother's sudden death.
That's the main thing he and Hit-Girl have in common. When Big Daddy dies, she says, my mom already died for nothing. So I'm sure as hell not gonna let my dad die for nothing too. And suddenly, Dave's nondramatic, not so tragic death of a parent, feels poignant, and at the heart of why he became a superhero. That's good stuff.
That's the main thing he and Hit-Girl have in common. When Big Daddy dies, she says, my mom already died for nothing. So I'm sure as hell not gonna let my dad die for nothing too. And suddenly, Dave's nondramatic, not so tragic death of a parent, feels poignant, and at the heart of why he became a superhero. That's good stuff.
I really enjoyed all the other superhero motifs that are turned on their heads, like the I'm Batman moment where Dave goes to Katie's house to finally reveal his secret identity to his secret love, except in this universe, you can't just sneak into a girl's bedroom, and expect her to throw herself at you; no, she's gonna pepper spray you and hit you with what she can find, scream bloody murder and probably call the cops. So, he reveals his identity, and also that he's not gay, and the scene really takes its time so that by the end, I can finally buy her reluctantly asking Dave to stay, and letting his fantasy play out once she gotten over the shock. In the comics, this is the end of their relationship, but the movie allows her to become his Mary Jane and it's worked because it's what she's wanted all along. Very early on in their friendship, she wishes he wasn't gay.
I do question the reason why people think he's homosexual, because it doesn't follow to me, and it was the same in the comic, too. What everyone thinks happened, is that Dave got mugged, stripped naked, and stabbed, and his father has every reason to ask if Dave was sexually assaulted. It seems unusually cruel, even for bullying high school kids oppressing the socially awkward kids, that anyone could make the leap to assume he must be gay because he was naked after his horribly traumatic ordeal. That's a flimsy plot point that's only there to open a dialogue between Dave and Katie. Vaughn is one of my favorite directors for these kinds of films, because he's established such a specific, consistent, visual flavor and his directing doesn't get in the way of the story. He even says, in his commentary, it's important to him that the drama dictates where the drama goes, and not the other way around, and that great acting should drive your movies rather than gimmicky cuts and close ups.
Kick-Ass is all about those contrasts. It looks bright and tasteful much of the time, like Raimi's Spider-Man, but then it's relentlessly violent. It's a movie that seduces me into enjoying things I don't usually like, and sometimes making me hate myself for it. That's effective film making.